Prensky & Boyd Response
Based on the two readings, the first a recording explaining "Digital Natives" by Marc Prensky, the second "Literacy: Are today's youth digital natives?" from Danah Boyd's book It's Complicated, I have mixed feelings about the idea of what a digital native is and how it should be applied. The general idea that we, as educators, can lump together all youths into one category called 'digital natives' makes me wary. Every day we see how students that are all the same age react and act differently as a result of their social, emotional, and cultural upbringings. Therefore, how could they all be digital natives? And what is a youth in the first place? For the purposes of my own understanding of these readings, I defined youths as the population of students prekindergarten through twelfth grade who are members in the United States education system. 
After listening to Presnky's ideas, however, I do see his argument. If digital natives are operating with twitch speed, parallel processing, and are connected more than previous generations, then yes! Why wouldn't all youths be considered digital natives? Most students I interact with display these tendencies, and as my grandfather fondly describes them, are the iPad generation. What my grandfather means to say, is the way their brain works, and their expectation of having access to the internet and their digital friends all the time is vastly different than the world he is accustomed to. And he, in his grouchy old age, has blamed all of this on the iPad. He is not incorrect in supporting Prensky's argument that to an extent, all youths are digitally literate, especially when the PEW research study in 2018 found that 95% of US teens have a smartphone. He is incorrect perhaps, in assuming that youths all have developed the skillset necessary to take a barebones understanding of technology and apply it beyond social media. This is my main qualm with Prensky's idea of digital natives. That he assumes all youths have the ability to question, find bias, be productive, create, and criticize what they see online. These in my opinion, are skills that need to be taught and underscore the difference between consuming information online and producing it.
In my own classroom I have students (seventh graders) creating Tik Toks, going live on Instagram, creating incredibly elaborate YouTube channels with hundreds of followers -- all seemingly digitally literate. Consistently, these same students are unable to complete the digital tasks assigned to them in a timely manner. There is a dissonance found between the ability to operate socially online and the ability to critically think to perform work or school related tasks online. Typing a text message on a phone requires a completely different set of skills than writing a paragraph on a Google Document. Similar to understanding the intricacies of the Facebook app are different to using the desktop version. It is here where I find my strongest agreement with Danah Boyd, that not all youths should be considered digital natives. Yes, they have been born into a world where technology runs rampant and they will be exposed at a young age and their brains will change accordingly. However, they are not born with the understanding of how to critically think about what sources to use, how to write a paper with citations on Word, or how to present their research in a Google Slide deck. It is our job as educators to teach students how to "develop the skills and knowledge to engage with contemporary technology effectively and meaningfully" (Boyd 177).
I believe that the assumption that all youths are digital natives is naïve in assuming that all youths have access to the right tools to become natives in the first place, a point discussed at length by Boyd. Not everyone has a desktop, or a laptop, or a typing class, or a school subscription to EBSCO host. Not all students have parents who are adept digitally that could help them out, or access to computer labs with attached typing or computer programming classes at school. If we are to assume that technology will continue to become more and more omnipresent in our lives and in the classroom, we should take it upon ourselves to create those spaces in the school building for students to really understand how to best use technology in their lives beyond the smartphone. This means curriculum that explains the why of the technology we are using, how it is biased, how it is helpful, and how it works. In my opinion, only then, once all these boxes are ticked, could a youth be considered a digital native.
Claire, I love your term about youth being digitally literate. While not all students have the same understanding or access I feel like they are more open to learn new technology. our current pandemic has opened the technological door for students who did not have internet/ computer access at home.
ReplyDeleteYou made a great point about how its difficult to lump an entire generation of kids into one category when every child is so different. It reminds me of the bit in Sir Ken Robinsons ted talk when he references how different every single child is from one another.
ReplyDeleteClaire, I completely agree with Dania about your discussion of how making the digital native group into a monolith misses important diversity/nuance among the group. Something that struck me when I was doing the readings was the nuance that race, class, gender, socioeconomic status, and other factors can bring to the youth and change how they engage with technology.
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